


Summon Up Your Ghost for Me (Rest Your Tired Thoughts Upon My Hands)

by stardustedknuckles



Series: Beauyasha College AU [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, College AU, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Nothing explicit, PTSD, and then Beau has a flashback, but they're gonna help each other through it, do you ever accidentally put too much of yourself in something, photographer yasha, the smut in the beginning is fun and fine, they're both a little fucked up, this is not a misery porn fic, tw past sexually charged coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:35:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: Life at Yasha's apartment has been a dream to Beau, and her old life never feels farther from her than when she's there. But bad memories have a way of sneaking through the most comforting of moments -- luckily, Yasha's right there to help carry her through.More fluff than is implied, but note the tags.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Series: Beauyasha College AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024825
Comments: 9
Kudos: 207





	Summon Up Your Ghost for Me (Rest Your Tired Thoughts Upon My Hands)

**Author's Note:**

> I knew that doing a college AU had a high chance of pulling up some of my less fond college experiences, but I didn't set out intending to write this. Still, I'm not someone to give angst without resolution, and this fic is absolutely centered on resolution and finding your feet with someone you trust.

Yasha's kitchen is great.

Beau assumes it is objectively nice also, to people who are not her, but it's hard to know - her experience of kitchens includes "extravagant" and "shithole" without much in the way of a middle ground. She didn't really get to use the ones at the other places she stayed, is the other thing. Way too many nights eating cold beanie weenies out of the can from the couch or whatever corner she was holed up in.

Then again, way too many nights eating cold beanie weenies at her parents' house too, nice kitchen and all.

But this kitchen is bright and spacious, and she's got all the ingredients for an excellent fucking sandwich in front of her, so Beau shrugs off the memories as best she can and returns to the task at hand.

Outside, she can hear dogs on their walks, the intermittent slamming of car doors and front doors, feet on metal stairs, and the slow hiss of pre-autumn wind. It's not quite cool enough to open the windows yet, but it's coming.

She licks the mayo off the knife and cuts into the tomato, marveling at how smoothly it parts under the blade. And the cutting board! Definitely hasn't seen one of those since her parents' house. Well. Michael may have had one, but it was mostly where he kept his weed and the occasional molly for dividing up. He was a good guy. Beau makes a mental note to check on him later.

In the soft quiet of the afternoon, she hears the bed make that weird noise that never quite makes it to a creak but manages to sound like it's protesting weight on it anyway, and she smiles to herself as she reseals the bag with the lettuce and turns to the cheese. Muenster cheese, because it had a fun name and Beau knew Yasha would find it funny too. Ended up not half bad in the end.

There's a kind of void feeling when ears pick up sound that isn't quite sound. Like it's more of a displacement of air than any actual noise. She can feel it off to her right as Yasha comes out into the hall and pauses, probably checking for Beau in the office, then moves towards her. Beau starts another sandwich, no tomato. Good, fresh bread, mayo, get the red onion back out…

the padding of bare feet on tile, and then soft arms reach around Beau as Yasha's sleep-warm weight drapes against her back. Beau turns her head to kiss the corner of Yasha's mouth so close to hers before returning to her work contentedly. Yasha huffs in the petulance that only comes when she's drowsy like this, all her desires a little closer to the surface.

"I want a real kiss."

Beau grins, eyes still on the onion as she slices it thinly. "Fuck yeah you do." She sets the knife down and turns back to meet Yasha halfway for a kiss that lasts longer and leaves her a little dizzy. When Yasha's tongue slides into her mouth, she pulls all of her frayed willpower together and leans back to grant one chaste kiss to Yasha's somewhat lost expression. "I gotta finish these sandwiches, babe. M'starving."

Yasha makes a sleep-smudged sound of disapproval and tightens one of her arms around Beau's middle just slightly. The other falls away, and Beau takes more of Yasha's weight with an exaggerated sigh.

Yasha's fingers slip under her tank just a little. "I like it better when you pay attention to me."

Oh that is not even a problem. Not in the slightest. Beau rubs her cheek on Yasha's hair and speeds up a little on the sandwich making. "You'll thank me when you taste this. Just give me like two -" Yasha's grip on the inside of her knee cuts her off mid-thought. She feels Yasha's smile on her shoulder as her hand climbs.

"Fingers?" she suggests. Beau's knees give a little, but Yasha's arm around her waist isn't just there for show and she holds her up easily -- which, as realizations go, is just about enough to start a feedback loop of horny inside Beau.

Yasha's teeth close around the juncture of her shoulder and neck, and Beau distantly hears the knife tumble into the sink as her vision hazes. "Gods, Yash…"

She hmms in Beau's ear. "I think I'm going to want two sandwiches, come to think of it." She can feel Yasha's thumb pressing at her cunt through her boxers. "Finish up," she murmurs, adding, "maybe leave the knife where it is."

Fuck the sandwiches. Beau twists to try and catch Yasha again, but she shifts her weight and Beau is suddenly pinned hard against the cabinet and Yasha's palm is nearly holding her up by her cunt alone.

"Keep your hands on the counter or I stop. Got it?" Beau presses her lips together, nods. "Good." Yasha kisses her cheek and slides her hands just inside Beau's waistband. "Get to work." She teases at her hipbones as Beau reaches for two more slices of bread with suddenly very shaky hands.

A minute ago, she'd been moving as quickly as possible. Now? She's going to make the fucking slowest sandwiches anyone's ever seen. She has to look up and collect herself for a moment when her boxers are pulled down just enough to expose her ass to the cool air in the apartment, and then Yasha's hand slides from the base of her spine to between her legs and Beau ruins the slice of bread she had been about to try and put mayonnaise on with the nearby spoon.

**************

Yasha, for her part, is having a very good time watching beau try and multitask, especially since she knows that if she puts her fingers in just the right spot, she can absolutely make her fail. And another time, she will, but right now she's content to stare breathlessly at Beau twitching before her as she tries to carry out her orders.

This way, she can stare as openly as she likes. There's a tendency, with Beau, for her to shrink away when Yasha stares too much. Yasha's not surprised, given what she knows about Beau's life, but she relishes every moment she gets to spend with nothing to distract her from the body before her.

Her hands are near reverential as she pushes the fabric of Beau's tight top up just enough to expose the little dimples there at the top of her ass. She presses her lips to one, then the other as she slowly slides her fingers between Beau's folds. The faint slick noises bring her no end of satisfaction, but they make her think of her mouth on Beau's cunt instead, and fuck it she's in charge here, isn't she?

Kind of?

She withdraws her hand and gifts another bite to the tantalizing expanse of Beau's shoulder, and then she pushes Beau's boxers all the way down and says "step out of them and back up a little."

Beau groans a lovely, broken sound and steps with effort out of the puddle of her shorts to spread her legs just a little. Yasha tugs her hips backwards until she's leaning over the counter and her tongue can comfortably reach Beau's cunt from behind.

"Yasha," Beau whines, looking at her over her shoulder with an expression gone jagged with need.

She nods to the counter. "Keep working." Without waiting to see her order carried out, Yasha drops to her knees and presses her mouth hungrily to Beau's cunt with a moan of relief that makes the knees in her hands shake as Beau's back arches with a sharp, half-vocalized hiss.

Oh, yes. She could spend all day right here, until the yellow light on the dining room wall has spilled all the way across the floor and faded to purple evening in earnest. Even so, it's difficult to remember to slow down - there's a part of her that wants to break Beau apart here and now, dig her nails in and claim her. She forces herself to run feather-soft touches up and down the outside of Beau's legs instead, laving her tongue against Beau's clit and only pausing to pull back and fuck up into her entrance before returning to where she knows Beau wants her most.

And she's making the most beautiful, ragged sounds for Yasha, her hips rolling against her mouth as various food packages crinkle and thump intermittently from the counter. It will very clearly be a haphazard sandwich - she almost feels bad. She snakes a hand up the front of Beau's shirt to tweak a nipple and she collapses immediately to one elbow with a grunt. Almost.

She lets herself get lost in the sensation of Beau's cunt for a short while longer, running her hands along those muscled and quivering thighs, until -

"It's - ah! - it's done." Beau's voice is so cracked that Yasha almost can't understand her, and she keeps her thumbs swiping gently along the inside of Beau's thighs as she pulls back to spot two plates -- one with a very nice-looking sandwich and the other with one nice sandwich and one that looks like - well, like the maker was being fucked while putting it together.

Yasha smiles and licks at Beau's cunt just once more, enjoying the way she stiffens before pulling back and getting up. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and steps too close into Beau's space to reach over her and swap the messy sandwich for the nice one. "There," she says at Beau's weak protest. "You get to eat the one you made while I fucked you."

Still panting, Beau leans up on her elbow to squint at her. Her face is a lovely shade of red and just a little shiny with sweat, and she is a gorgeous thing, still bent slightly over for her. "I thought you would want that one."

Yasha's eyebrows raise as she takes a bite of her sandwich, and fuck, Beau had been right to look forward to this. "Oh that is good, you were right." She swallows and watches Beau do the same, her eyes wide. "As for what you eat," she continues, "you can have the ruined sandwich or a ruined orgasm." Beau opens her mouth and, unbelievably, hesitates.

Yasha, on her second bite, nearly chokes laughing. "Sandwich!" Beau says hastily. "I'll take the ruined sandwich." Yasha plucks the glass of orange juice Beau had been sipping on while she worked and drains it, still smiling. "I can't believe you had to think about it."

"It's fresh ingredients!" Even though she's smiling back, Yasha can hear the conviction. "Raw tomatoes are gonna taste like shit in like a week and then I'll have to wait til summer again. You don't even like tomatoes," she adds petulantly when Yasha doesn't show any sign of yielding.

She takes her plate and Beau's to the table and sprawls in a chair, spreading her thighs carelessly in her soft pajama pants and smiling inwardly as Beau twists to keep her in her line of sight without letting go of the counter. "True, but I do love making you wait for things." She lets Beau scowl at her for a moment longer before lifting the top piece of bread from the bottom sandwich and delicately moving the tomatoes to Beau's sandwich.

Beau eyes her warily. "You're not gonna make me wait til summer now, are you?"

Yasha grins. "Depends on how prettily you eat that for me."

"Does this mean I can let go of the counter now?" There is a deep-seated part of Yasha that wants so badly to say no, to make her stand there exposed and burning under Yasha's gaze while she takes her time eating.

But she's also had a really good nap and she loves spending time with Beau like this - mostly naked, yes, but more so unhurried. A rare day off of school and work for the both of them.

A compromise, then. "How about you take off your shirt and come sit down with me."

By all rights, it's not a request too far out of left field. In fact, Yasha's pretty sure she's said it before in other contexts. But she feels it - something in the air shifts. She's expecting cockiness, but the way Beau's eyes darken with a shiver seems dissonant somehow. This too is not an uncommon response, she's been known to go flight when Yasha expects fight. But the slow, mechanical way she pulls her shirt over her head and drops it before taking her seat snags Yasha's attention and small alarms start to go off in the back of her mind. What is she seeing? A little stiffness sitting down, a little tension in Beau's arm that Yasha can't put down to simply sexual frustration. Beau loves to show off, to preen, to give as good as she gets.

In the breezy afternoon light reflecting from the edge of the table, she looks suddenly at the far end of Yasha's reach.

Most alarmingly, she hasn't picked up her sandwich yet.

She leans forward, concerned. "Is something wrong, Beau?" Beau tilts her head towards her a little, but her eyes don't make it to Yasha's.

 _That_ is the tipoff.

"Beau," she says, a little more urgently. She keeps her voice soft and her hands close to her; they've been here before. "Look at me, Beau. Please?" She complies, struggling to bring her eyes to focus on Yasha directly. "I'm going to touch your face, okay?"

She nods blankly, stiffens just a little when Yasha's hand slides along her cheek to nestle against the side of her cheek. Yasha's thumb finds its place in the hollow under her ear, and Beau's eyes flutter closed. "Come back to me," Yasha whispers. Beau inhales slowly, then again even slower. Yasha's hands feel numb, the space behind her ribs cold with panic. She silently counts down from fifteen. At zero, it'll be time to call someone.

At three, those blue eyes open again and they're blessedly clear.

Yasha tries to smile, but there's something like a sob in the way of it. Beau nuzzles into Yasha's palm, reaching up to hold it in place and intertwine their fingers. "I'm here," she rasps. "Sorry, got lost for a minute." Yasha thaws by degrees, searching Beau's face for signs of what went wrong, how she can fix it.

She gently strokes the dip under Beau's ear. "Did I ask for something I shouldn't?"

Beau hesitates, frowning a little. "I don't think so. It felt more like… just a bunch of shit stirred up the wrong way at a bad moment." She glances down at herself, and her shoulders pull in on themselves almost involuntarily as she looks away, mumbling in embarrassment. "Can I wear your shirt?"

Yasha's heart has dropped through the floor, but she scrambles out of her flannel -- slightly long on her, overlong on Beau in a way that always makes Yasha feel thunderstruck and possessive all at once - and scoots closer to drape the fabric around Beau's shoulders. She hovers uncertainly as Beau slips her arms into the sleeves and sighs in relief as she wraps her arms around herself. She leans into Yasha's chest for a moment, and Yasha kisses the top of her head and squeezes her gently.

"Is it the sort of thing that gets better if you say it out loud?" She can usually tell, but whatever flashback Beau is having had come from nowhere this time. Best to follow her lead.

Beau sits up with a reassuring touch to Yasha's knee and reaches for her sandwich. Her hands are steady as she takes a bite, and she makes a satisfied noise that Yasha is distantly aware would have been hot five minutes ago but now just makes her fervently hope that if provides Beau some comfort. She takes two more before replying.

"It's not anything special," she says, which is how Yasha knows it very much is, "just a bunch of horny frat boys over at one of the apartments I was crashing at. The host wasn't terrible - the guy I was staying with that night - just a pushover. Gay, but terrified to say anything, so it was easy for them to get him worked up to play along after enough booze." Yasha doesn't move, doesn't breathe. "I came out to heat up some food, and one of them started cracking jokes about dinner with a view." She takes another bite, risks a look at Yasha. She's not sure what Beau finds on her face, but she doesn't shut down. She is, however, talking to her sandwich when she speaks again. "Nothing happened, not really." She considers. "Nothing physical I could take up with bureaucracy, at least, since I wasn't supposed to be there anyway. The guys said it was the tax for crashing there."

Yasha's heart seizes. "They said what I said."

Beau nods at the table, tries for a smirk. "I actually wanted to do it for you though. Just…like I said. Wrong thought, wrong time."

They've been here enough that Yasha knows that to give in to her irrational urge to apologize would put it on Beau to comfort her instead, so she says, "Will you tell me? If your mind is headed in that kind of direction again?"

Beau's brow furrows, but she nods after a moment. "That's probably a good idea, just. Stuff like that wanders through my head every now and then for no reason. S'not always easy to tell when it's worth bringing up."

Yasha thinks. "A signal, maybe? Like a conversational safeword if you feel it becoming relevant to what we're doing?"

She hesitates for a moment. "Maybe? I don't know how well it'll work, but it's something." She considers her mostly-eaten sandwich. "Crust." She makes a face. "Naw, that doesn't feel right." She puts her chin on her fist, stares off into the middle distance. There's no danger in it this time; she's thinking, Yasha tells herself, but she's not gone. "Crayons," Beau says after a moment.

Yasha nods. "Crayons it is." Beau smiles gratefully at her and polishes off the rest of her plate with a little more of her usual liveliness - enough to relax Yasha just a little. Something raw pulses in her chest as she watches Beau drain her glass and push her sleeves up. She feels a little sick at the thought of Beau being made to feel helpless, forced to trade her pride for what wasn't even a promise of safety. How could anyone have this amazing, dynamic person in their home and allow any harm to come to her?

She knows Beau would say the same to her, if she told her more about her own life. She knows it just as certainly as she knows that the knot of that life is loosening its grasp with every passing day she spend in Beau's company - as surely as she knows she'll sit her down one day and tell her everything. Yasha knows the situation Beau described. Different circumstances, different intent perhaps, but she knows it and it breaks her heart to think of someone she loves as fiercely as this foul-mouthed firecracker with her bruise-dusted knuckles and shark-split grin being made to feel small, defenseless, hopeless -

Beau's chair makes a harsh scrape as she rocks it closer to Yasha until they're close enough for Beau to shift and lean back onto Yasha's chest. It's a little awkward with them in separate chairs, but for a few moments they can just sit, Beau's arms grasping Yasha's lightly where they wrap around the base of her ribs. She doesn't say anything to Yasha - possibly she hadn't come to snap her out of her thoughts at all - but she's a solid and warm anchor to hold onto and Yasha relaxes into her, stroking her thumb over and over across the soft flannel covering her ribs.

Sometimes it's hard to tell when Beau wants a reply and when it's going to tear something open further, but Yasha's heart hurts for her, maybe even a little for herself, as seen through Beau's eyes, in a way that demands acknowledgment. "I'm sorry you didn't have a safe place to go," she says softly, chin nestled in her hair.

"Yeah." They sit quietly for a moment, then Beau inhales and traces her fingers along Yasha's wrist and the back of her hand to nudge lightly at her fingers in a request Yasha knows all too well. When their fingers are intertwined, Beau's voice comes again. "Thanks for being my safe place."

Yasha squeezes her eyes shut and rubs her cheek along the top of Beau's head, breathing her sweat-shampoo-musk smell before murmuring "always."

Beau's free hand drops to the outside of Yasha's thigh, and there's a smile in her voice as she says, "That was really hot though. Making the sandwich while you ate me out? Loved it."

"Oh?" Yasha says carefully, conscious of the intentional way Beau's fingertips are playing along her thigh through her pajama pants.

"Yeah," says Beau. "The shirt thing was too, like for real. Just…maybe file that away for another day." She pauses. "No, definitely file that away for another day."

Yasha chuckles and dips her head to Beau's shoulder. She drops a chaste kiss on the pink mark left from her teeth and feels Beau's fingers dig in just a little harder as she takes a slow breath in. "Hey Yash?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you still…can we?" Yasha considers the sprawl of her in her lap, cocooned between her thighs. It would be so lovely and so easy to slide her hand down, finish Beau just like this.

But there's a wound airing out here, too, and though she's not certain how much of what Beau wants from her has to do with it, she won't risk missing the chance to be something Beau needs. "Of course we can," she says, pleased when her breath on Beau's ear makes her break out in a shiver of gooseflesh along her jaw. "But I want to see you. Is that okay?" _I want to stand guard._

"Yeah that's - that's fine. I think I want to see you too." A beat. "wait, I mean -"

Yasha is already laughing as she tightens her arms around Beau before letting her go just long enough for her to flip around catch the laugh in her own mouth.

They stay that way for a while, just kissing. Beau is leaning down a little to reach Yasha in her chair, while Yasha's hands rest just beneath Beau's ribs, content to linger in that one spot as her thumbs press slow circles into her skin. When Beau's hand finally moves from Yasha's shoulder to tangle in her hair with slightly more urgency, Yasha takes her cue to stand and scoop Beau up with her hands supporting her ass. Beau's legs wrap around her, and Yasha carries her to bedroom with a half-formed thought of how the last gleams of afternoon light will look across her body in the big comfy chair they often share while reading together.

She has to use her foot to move it a bit closer to the window, but there's enough left to fill the seat and wash over Beau from her nose to her knees when Yasha sets her down in front of all the pillows that fill it while they're gone and breaks the kiss to kneel on the floor.

And her heart is doing something soft and sharp all at once when she takes Beau in, the dregs of evening spilled across Yasha's gray plaid flannel and ducking in and out of the shadows on her abs and under her breasts. Beau's lips are shiny and just a little swollen, and her eyes in the relative shadow above are wide and wanting and…something more.

Yasha slides her hands from the top of Beau's knee up to the thatch of dark hair between her legs, and Beau leans back with a soft sound as her legs make way to give Yasha better access. She moves her head just for a glimpse of the light glinting on the damp curls, and then she moves her thumb to press gentle, promising circles on Beau's clit as she tracks open-mouthed, wet kisses all the way up the inside of her thigh. Beau's hands come to rest again in her hair, flexing just enough to work Yasha up a little as she hears the accompanying soft gasps from above her.

"God, you're hot." Beau's voice is a ragged thing, and Yasha smiles up at her before planting a soft kiss right on her folds.

"And you're radiant, Beau."

She blushes a little, glances away. "You got that damn photographer's eye for everything."

Yasha smiles. "You love it."

Beau looks back to her, expression soft. "Yeah, you got me there."

Yasha hooks her arms under Beau's knees and pulls her legs up to rest on her shoulders. "I don't think I'll need a photo to remember this."

Now Beau laughs, a tremulous and lust-riddled exhalation because she's got Yasha's number, this is a two-way conversation they're having with their bodies and their words even if Yasha isn't yet fully certain how to navigate the topic. "You should take one anyway," she says. A little quieter: "I like seeing what you see."

There's a kind of dare there, Yasha can feel it. It would be nice, to capture this moment, but her camera is in the kitchen and there's something to all of this that she can't exactly name. She gets the sense that she shouldn't move away from Beau, that there's not a good enough reason to sever the contact between them.

So she doesn't.

Beau gasps when Yasha's teeth scrape the long shadow of her inner thigh muscle, and after a few lovely moments of squirming helplessly she says something that sounds like "pants." Yasha pauses, confused. Beau nudges her head gently with a leg and makes a loose gesture to a spot just behind Yasha. "My phone's in my pants right behind you. Take a picture with it?"

She's not going to argue with that. "Yeah, okay." Yasha leans back as far she can without letting go of Beau's leg with her other hand and hooks a finger in the denim puddled a couple feet behind her. She slides the phone out of the front left pocket and thumbs it open, smiling at the background of the two of them tangled and grinning outside on the steps of the quad a week ago.

Beau huffs softly, and Yasha quickly pulls up the camera. She's a little disappointed in the lack of a pro mode, but it's for the best. She could spend an hour fiddling with exposure and aperture even on a phone, and she's got other plans. It's got an automatic HDR - she can touch it up later and bring out the golds in the -

There's a soft and needy noise from Beau, and Yasha's heart jumps with the vulnerability of it. She snaps two quick photos and tosses the phone aside, surging up to meet the hands reaching for her hair, her cheek, just her.

"Did you get good ones?" Beau's voice is trying for swagger but she can't pull it off with Yasha's fingers gripping her thighs like this. Yasha licks a slow line up between her folds, unhurried and pleased with the way Beau hisses in approval.

"It's impossible to take a bad photo of you. Even with a shitty phone."

Beau's laugh cuts off sharply as Yasha presses her tongue against her entrance and reaches up to pinch a dark nipple. "Might consider taking you up on that upgrade if - ah, fuck - if it means I get to see more of myself the way you do." There's that dangerous, raw quality to Beau's words, a knife-glint vulnerability held out to her just to see what she does with it. She's certain, now, that this is in some way the conclusion to the story Beau half told her at the table. She's rewriting the ending, putting the pen in Yasha's hand. _Tell me a new story._

And that's alright, that's her whole goal isn't it? To be able to show Beau what she sees when she looks at her? With the camera, yes, but not just that. With her hands, with her words, with her mouth, here, on a bundle of nerves as live wired as Beau herself. Yasha hums in agreement against Beau's clit and presses harder on her thighs, melting a little at the way Beau's abs contract when her hips buck involuntarily like that. Yasha gets to work trying her best to coax that movement out of her again and the broken keen that accompanies the tightening of Beau's fingers in her hair has her growling a little in response.

"Yash." Beau's voice is broken- there is a weight here, a sob. She's hurling herself over the edge of something and trusting Yasha to catch her when she leaps. "Yasha, I - fuck!"

Yasha rolls the nipple pinched between her fingers and breathes in the scent of Beau all around, the warm press of her thighs against her ears, the way she is already so close to coming apart for Yasha in the way she sometimes does that feels like it comes from somewhere deeper than Yasha could reach with her fingers or her tongue.

Gods, Yasha loves this woman, this electric socket of a personality and wit, loves being where Beau brings all her broken pieces and trusts that Yasha will care for them. Lovely gasps, wanton mewls as her cunt grinds against Yasha's mouth and she's there, she's got her as Beau tips and falls over the edge with a half-mouthed curse, Yasha's hand splayed over her chest and her tongue working her through her orgasm and lowering her back down gently to earth, to this space, to her.

Yasha's kisses against Beau's clit are light now, heatless things that make Beau twitch but don't chase her. Beau's shaking hands leave Yasha's hair and tug on her shoulders in a demand for her to come up, to join her on the chair.

Yasha helps Beau's legs off her shoulders and obliges, trailing more kisses up along Beau's stomach between the pearl snaps of the gray plaid before finding her jaw, her lips. There are tears still glistening in the corners of Beau's eyes; Yasha cups her face and kisses them away too, following them down to just below her ear. "Okay?" she murmurs.

Beau nods and fists Yasha's tank top to burrow against her chest, her breaths coming in slower gasps as Yasha scoops her up again, gently this time, and tosses pillows out of the chair with a free hand before curling into the round space of it and holding Beau in her lap. There's a thin throw over the back of chair; Yasha pulls it free and drapes it around Beau and pets her hair softly.

It's not the first time something has shaken loose from Beau in this way, she'll slowly even out, avoid Yasha's eyes for an hour, mumble some kind of apology for being a sap - Yasha knows how this goes and she presses soft kisses to Beau's hair, her fingers running along the shaved part of her undercut just behind her ear as she waits, and tries again to find the right words to tell Beau how much it means to her to be the one watching over her in these moments. There's nothing she can say that doesn't come out completely wrong in her head, no way to avoid sounding like she's thanking Beau for being so openly broken when it's not the brokenness that she craves. It's not the tears and the cracks in her façade that she loves, though she certainly does. It's the glimpse of the dark side of the moon, the way the shadows focus the light of her.

She can't figure out how to tell Beau she wants all of her, partially because it makes her dizzy to consider the mounting evidence that she doesn't just love Beau - she's in love with her.

As Beau would say, that's fucking wild.

So Yasha holds her, and she says soft words of comfort, and she doesn't say anything about how the way Beau clings to her makes her feel like all of it - the world, Beau, this moment - hinges on her. Makes her feel like she's significant. Like it's enough, to just sit here and do this and be this for Beauregard Lionett.

"I guess that bothered me more than I thought." Beau's breaths have quieted, the fists gone flat against her spine and her arm under the throw.

"I understand." Yasha hesitates. "I'm glad…I could be here for you." She lets a little extra sincerity out into her words, selfishly taking the inch offered her.

Silence stretches for a long moment; by now the room is properly dim beyond what little waning light gasps through the window to crawl along the carpet. She thinks the moment for Beau to catch on has passed, and that's alright. This is enough. "Yash?"

She continues stroking the tattoo at the back of Beau's neck, works to keep her tone nonchalant. "Yeah?"

Beau shifts so that her head is still pressed against Yasha's shoulder, but more on the outside of it so she can look up at her face. The lack of light makes her look softer to Yasha, all the edges sanded down. "Will you tell me why you understand, one day?"

Yasha waits for the automatic tense, the unintentional signal to Beau that she's prodded a nerve, the ruining of the last hour of vulnerability. She finds, after a moment, that although her breath hitched in preparation, it's not coming. "I'm not sure I can," she says, daring to meet Beau's eyes. "Not right now." There's understanding in Beau's expression that Yasha's not sure how to process.

She smiles reassuringly at Yasha. "Yeah I don't mean anytime soon. Just…" her brow furrows a little as she looks for the right words; Yasha smooths the line with her thumb on reflex and smiles when Beau leans into her hand. "I thought I couldn't process shit, not really. Things happen and they just kind of fade or they don't or they come back to bite me in the ass later. Therapy's great, but." Her eyes search Yasha's face. "I feel safe, with you. And I just want to return the favor, you know, if the words ever come."

A hundred replies jam against the door from Yasha's brain to her mouth, and none of them come out. Beau looks immediately worried. "Did I…was that too personal? Sorry, I-"

Yasha shushes her gently and leans down to kiss her forehead, gathering her thoughts. "You are perfect," she assured. An incredulous chuckle bubbled from her throat. "I am just surprised you beat me to the punch."

Beau smiles back, relieved, and nudges her head against Yasha's shoulder. "Don't feel too bad, I'm a fast puncher."

Smiling, Yasha tugs the blanket up over Beau's shoulder. "I think the words might come one day," she says before she can bite it back, because the air is soft and lovely and dim and it seems right, like this is a gift for Beau somehow. She's listening intently, looking at Yasha like she hung the moon, so she says, "if you still want to hear them, when they do, I…I think I would like to tell you."

It's not the "I love you" that's getting dangerously close to the surface, but it's an offering, and she's not sure what she expected the answer to be but Beau's affectionate lips on hers undoes a knot she only notices as it passes.

"I hope you will," Beau says. "I'll be here."

A few more minutes pass in silent contentment, and then Yasha's stomach growls into the dark. "Whoops."

Beau grins and begins to extricate herself from the pile of limbs they've tangled in. "You didn't eat much, that's right." Yasha raises an eyebrow at her and Beau chucks a pillow from the floor into her lap, laughing now. "Not the same thing. C'mon, lemme get my pants on and I'll make us a snack."

Yasha blinks. "I was just going to eat the sandwiches."

Beau sighs, tugging a pair of pajama pants that look like they might be Yasha's over her hips and tying the drawstring with deft, sure fingers. "I will never understand how me making food became the better option. You know I mostly ate beans out of cans before this, right?" She takes Yasha's hand and leads her out to the main room, softly glowing in the light from the kitchen.

Yasha takes a seat at the table and leans on an elbow to watch Beau rummage through the cabinets. "Sure," she concedes, "but you love to study and figure out how to put things together. I'm just here to take pictures of the results."

Beau rattles a blue and yellow box at her. "Not much photogenic about Easy Mac." She winks and flips a pot over in her hand before turning to the sink, lost almost immediately in her task.

Yasha watches her, smiling a little - those are definitely her pants Beau's wearing, and her fingers just poke out the ends of her shirt. Yasha watches as she pushes the sleeves up absentmindedly and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks comfortable, relaxed.

She looks like home.

Yasha reaches into the bag on the seat next to her, the one closest to the door that they use instead of the coat racks they had bought for that purpose, and quietly pulls her camera out.

Because frankly? Yasha's heart is aching at the life they're sharing, and that right there is what will come out in the photo she's going to take, when she looks at it later. A capsule of a moment, a synesthetic experience in a language just for them. Oh, maybe she'll use it for an assignment, if Beau is alright with it, but in the space between one breath and the next, this moment is hers alone. And if she gets it right, if she makes it say what she's thinking, then it will be another of the photos Beau likes the best, where she can see herself the way Yasha does.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Walk Beside You" by Dream Theater.
> 
> I know I'm not the only one who's loved someone they weren't always sure how to help, so maybe the diffuse emotion happening in here will land with someone else too.


End file.
